A Winter's Tale by Melanie Jackson

This is supposed to be an essay about the scariest thing that ever happened at Halloween. But the scariest thing that happened to me didn't happen in October. It happened right before Valentine's Day so I am going to write about that instead.

Vermont isn't like Virginia. We lived in a town called Maple. It gets really cold there and it was the coldest of days that February has to offer. No snow on the ground but the earth was frozen solid and would cut right through your mittens and bruise your knees if you fell on it. On days like that my mother would sometimes let me wear pants instead of a skirt and tights.

Unlike my brother, I always tried to follow Dad's instructions about being home-or at least past the old cemetery-by sunset. This was because it was sensible advice and not because I was a particularly obedient child. After all, everyone knew that something bad lived in the cemetery by the old apple orchard. Not a ghost, everyone agreed. But something. And it was terrible and ate children.

Of course, no one could actually recall when a child had last been eaten. It was long ago and always at night, they all agreed. Like when their grandparents were young and sometimes had to be out late rounding up sheep, or whatever it was farm kids did way back then before they had streetlights and proper roads. But the thing we all knew about monsters who live in cemeteries and eat children is that they probably didn't grow old and die like they should. Monsters that live in cemeteries and eat children live forever. Probably.

All us kids scoffed aloud at these spooky tales during the day when it was easy to be brave. Sometimes kids even went into the cemetery, pushing their way through the honeysuckle hedge and cedars at the place where the old iron fence had rusted and fallen down. But they never went alone and never at night, or even at sunset. Never. We didn't even walk past the graveyard once the sun was down. Just in case.

But as can sometimes happen, one day there came an exception to the rule and faced with two evils, I chose what I thought was the lesser one. My parents had a law, a rule of the house. If you weren't there when it was time to sit down to supper, then you got no supper. This wasn't bad on Tuesdays which were always fish-sticks night, but Monday was meatloaf with mashed potatoes and apple pie for dessert. I loved meatloaf. Though I had an excellent excuse for being late-Mrs. Irvington, my third grade teacher, had asked me to stay after and help but up the Valentine bulletin board-I knew that I wouldn't get an exception. So, faced with a long walk through the far side of town and over Hobbs Creek and around Briar Farm, I chose to take Cemetery Lane and run all the way home.

Dark came on fast that afternoon, the sky getting darker as I watched, looking up from the broken sidewalk as often as I dared (which wasn't too often because I was galloping. Galloping is good. You go almost as fast as a run but you don't look like a fraidy cat if anyone sees you). I had almost reached the safety of Twilight Street when I heard the sound a whimpering puppy.

The noise brought me up short and I broke the strap on my maryjanes which was held on by a small button and a bit of elastic. That was bad, you couldn't get up to a proper gallop with your right shoe flopping. I didn't want to stop at the cemetery. Just wanted to trot on as best I could with my ruined shoe until I got on a proper street with lights and cars and houses, but the noise came again, a sound so pathetic, so cold and so miserable that I had at least pause long enough to call out to the lost puppy. So many animals had disappeared in our neighborhood that many families had given up having pets, or else kept their animals inside all the time.

"Here puppy-puppy." My voice was tentative and frightened, barely louder than the wind that shook the dead honeysuckle that went up twice as high as my head. There was no more whimpering, but I could here a rustling in the shrubbery on the other side of the hedge, it was low down, like something was trying to burrow through it.

Past experience-as a witness to my brother's foolishness when playing with his friends-- told me where the break in the iron fence was located. All I had to was go on a few more feet to the statue of the lion and then bush aside the honeysuckle and crawl through the short tunnel of vines. That was all.

But I couldn't do it. There were spiders in the honeysuckle. Big ones. And I would get my dress very dirty, which would be double trouble because I already broke my shoe and would probably be late for dinner.

And there was the monster.

I scolded myself for being stupid. Monsters weren't real. And if they were it wasn't dark yet-not quite. And I wouldn't get that dirty crawling through dried vines and leaves. And didn't spiders hibernate in the winter? So there was no excuse for leaving a puppy out there in the cold. Especially if it was hurt and maybe even hungrier than I was.

Rustle, rustle went the vines.

Using some of the words my dad said that time he slammed his hand in the car door, I forced myself a few more steps up the uneven side walk and squatted down at the fence.

"Puppy-puppy," I called again, my voice still barely above a whisper. "Come here, puppy."

There was more movement, like something dragging through the shrubs. Unable to stand the vision of an injured dog I did what I had never done, or even thought of doing before. I pushed into the brittle bushes and crawled into the yard. Nasty sticks poked through my mittens but I didn't stop to inspect the damage. My shoes tried its best to come off my foot when I caught a vine, but I curled my toes hard and wiggled until it came loose. I think that I would have managed to get it through, but I scraped my ankle against some on the broken iron and the pike caught my shoe. I jerks when the tines scarped my leg and the shoe flipped back out onto the side walk.

"Crud." I wanted my shoe, but there was no way that I was wasting any more of what little light remained hunting for an already broken shoe. My feet would be protected by my heavy woolen socks as long as I walked carefully. And I would be walking carefully.

"Here, puppy-puppy." My voice, which appeared before me in a white cloud of condensation, was softer than ever. Fear had constricted my throat and would let only the smallest of noises escape. I felt like I was playing Marco Polo, only not with my friends.

I got to my feet but remained in a timid half-crouch as I shuffled forward. The air so cold that it hurt to breathe but fear-sweat was running down my back. I like crunching through dead leaves, but the sounds of those rotting twigs and branches snapping underfoot made me very nervous. Also there were some broken bottles mixed with the twigs and leaves and being brown, the fragments were hard to see. I was shocked. Someone had been brave enough to come here and drink beer and then had thoughtlessly smashed the bottles on the headstones. Who would do that? I was too scared to swallow my own spit, let alone drink.

Nor did I care for the smell that filled the freezing air. It was like skunk and cat poop. For the first time I began to wonder if the puppy might be very hurt-too hurt for me to move. If I went home to get my dad would he come back with me once it was dark? Surely he would, even if he would be angry about me trespassing and making him do it too.

I'm not too sure what happened then. The shadows were very deep and I was amazed that my breath was fogging the air before me. And then I realized that it wasn't just my breath; there really was an ice fog moving into the yard.

"Puppy-puppy!" I forced my voice to be louder as I began picking my way between shattered monuments.

The puppy didn't answer but I heard another rustle off to my right where there was another clump of dead shrubbery. I turned toward and took a single step when the bushes snapped loudly, like several branches had been broken off. And the noise came from high up. Squeaking with fear, I turned toward where the gap in the hedge was supposed to be and ran toward it.

I got lost. Instead of finding the hedgerow I ran into the side of a stone building. I barely had time to get an arm up before I hit it. The arm saved my teeth, but I still hit my head and then bounced backward where I tripped on a tombstone and then fell on something hard that dug into my back.

A thing loomed over me then. It wasn't looking down, so maybe it hadn't seen me. I don't know what it was. Not an animal. Not a person-at least I don't think it could have been a person. People don't have long pointy teeth and nails like a cat. Nor did people make sly, whimpering noises that sound like an injured dog.

The creature's hairy foot nudged me. Screeching again, I rolled onto my knees and scuttled around the corner of the mausoleum that had flattened me. I knew that a game of hide-and-seek wouldn't last long, but I absolutely could not stay still.

I jack-knifed my body around the corner but my shoeless foot got caught in some old roots and the creature was able to grab my leg. It's claws were sharp and punched right through my socks and into my skin. I rolled onto my back, trying to kick free, but it was no use. All I did was cut myself worse.

I believe-with all my heart-that I would have died then if my father and brother hadn't started shouting my name.

The monster considered me. Then it turned its head toward the voices. It sniffed and then snarled. And then it was gone. It just jumped onto the roof of the mausoleum and disappeared into the trees.

I found my voice then and managed a small scream. My dad was there in an instant, helping me up, and a moment later my brother was there too. He was holding the shoe I had lost out on the sidewalk.

It turned out that my teacher had realized how late it was and called my parents so they wouldn't be worried. Knowing that the most direct route home was by the cemetery and that I was probably nervous, my dad and brother had gone out to meet me.

They didn't believe me at first when I told them about the monster. In fact, I don't think my father has ever believed me. Now that I'm older, I understand what he was thinking had happened, but I swear that the thing that attacked me was not some crazy rapist or hobo looking for money. Anyhow, when Dad saw the deep scratches on my leg, he picked me up and carried me out of the cemetery. He didn't even yell at me for being stupid. I got nineteen stitches.

That next weekend the neighborhood dads got together with all their garden tools and they cut down the hedge around the cemetery. I don't think they got any permits. They just did it and no one tried to stop them. And then they repaired the broken fence where I had crawled through. They used chain-link, which was ugly, but it would keep the neighbors dogs and cats out. Children too, but they didn't say that.

The men didn't look for the monster, not in the mausoleums or up in the trees. I wanted them to look but I knew that mom and dad wanted me to stay quiet, so I did. I never talked about it again and we moved away that summer after school let out.

Anyhow, the fence worked. At least until this last February. My Uncle who still lives in Vermont sent my folks a clipping from the Maple Gazette. It seems some ten-year old boy had climbed the overgrown fence of the cemetery to look for an injured dog. His worried friends never saw him again.

He should have listened to his friends, to his parents-to anyone. Because everyone in Maple knows that child-eating monsters never die.

© 2009 by Melanie Jackson